The App Store was updated with a brand new layout for search results in iOS 6 beta. The change impacts both the iPhone and the iPad.

The card based layout is quite a departure from the current search results on iOS 5, as you’ll see in our hands-on video.

As you can see from our photo comparison below, the current iOS 5 based search results provide many more search results on a single page when compared to the updated results found in iOS 6 beta. The one area where iOS 6 is noticeably better is with the large screenshot of the app on the main search results page. This is an obvious trade off, but I’m not sure if most users will take kindly to the idea of limiting search results in exchange for a large screenshot.

iOS 5 vs iOS 6 search results

On the iPad, things are quite a bit better with the extra space, but there is still a noticeable difference in the amount of search results to be reaped on a single page.

Even though much of this may be indicative as to what we might be able to expect come iOS 6 launch, we must remember that it’s still beta, and therefore a lot can change between now and iOS 6’s final release. I’m particularly sure that Apple will iron out any speed or loading issues when it comes to searches and results.